7 ms·

A Global Guide to State-Sponsored Trolling

103 points by dsr12 8y ago

cjslep 8y ago
When I was a child using the internet of the late 90's and early 2000's my extended family of grandparents, aunts, and uncles always repeated to me the mantra "Don't believe everything you read on the internet." These are the same people that still forward chain emails and now believe outrageous articles merely because a person they know on a social media site has shared it. As if the person doing the sharing has legitimized the source. Anyway, while not directly influenced by trolls, the kind of content trolls promote still gets to them, and now I feel silly when I try to repeat my childhood mantra back to them. This stuff is really effective.
- aldous 8y ago
  Yes, indeed the genius of spreading propaganda this way is that it is often disseminated through personal networks, increasing its potency as a wealth of cognitive biases come into play. And how on earth can these campaigns be mitigated? The buffer of ‘mainstream media’ no longer appears to exists as it once did with the concept of ‘fake news’ etc very effectively delegitimising the concept of a reliable resource for information. The smartphone mightier than the sword. Weird isn’t it looking back on those halcyon days of early FB/Twitter? But on reflection, it’s totally logical that social platforms would ultimately end up being leveraged in this way.
  - mieseratte 8y ago
    > the concept of ‘fake news’ etc very effectively delegitimising the concept of a reliable resource for information. I'd say the mainstream media and their talking-head opinion-pieces masquerading as news did as much if not more to hurt their image. This would be a much less pernicious problem in a world of genuine, balanced reporting.
    - frockington 8y ago
      I believe the incentive to maximize clicks and/or views caused a short term spike in profits at the expense of long term integrity. I doubt it is permanent but the next few years will be difficult for media establishments when they need to restablish trust
      - chrisallenlane 8y ago
        > I doubt it is permanent but the next few years will be difficult for media establishments when they need to restablish trust Why do you doubt it is permanent? I'm personally very pessimistic about this.
    - mc32 8y ago
      The traditional MSM used to have a particular perspective. CBS, NBC, CNN, Time all had perspectives. That’s to say saw something from a given POV, but they were not “mouthpieces” masquerading as news, back then. Now they all pretty much take sides rather than just have a particular perspective.
      - slededit 8y ago
        For anyone that wants to understand this, listen to some old broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow on the internet archive. https://archive.org/details/SeeItNow1951 https://archive.org/details/SeeItNow1951 He has an opinion and he shares it. But he will let the other side talk. In his famous fight with Senator McCarthy he gave him a whole episode to tell his side, never interrupting.
    - dfxm12 8y ago
      I'd say the mainstream media and their talking-head opinion-pieces masquerading as news did as much if not more to hurt their image. I don't think mainstream media masquerades opinion pieces as news. I think the public at large, vis-a-vis confirmation bias, just wants to believe anything they agree with is true and miscategorizes these stories on their own. The Economist, CNN, MSNBC, NPR at least are all clear about what's news and what's opinion.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
It seems that the media's focus on 'start sponsored trolling' is starting to result in hysteria. You can already see people beginning to insist others are 'trolls' of this sort seemingly based on nothing other than a disagreement of opinions. It would seem that the more responsible way to handle things would be to try to educate people on media rather than aiming towards something that seems to be encouraging people to think that anybody who disagrees with them might be a shill. In particular it seems there are just two issues that could help people detect BS so much more easily: - 1. Avoid emotional responses. If you see something that tugs at the heart strings, or hear of an awful story, there's a good chance it's fake or an outlier event being portrayed as something regular. This [1] is one of the most famous examples. What that's actually an image of is not cosmetic testing on animals, as it was portrayed as in social media, but the spaying/neutering of a large number of cats rescued from abusive conditions. The reason I say there is a "good chance" it's fake is because appeals to emotion are specifically geared at provoking a response people might not otherwise engage in. - 2. Hold new things you expect to be true to the same scrutiny you'd hold new things you expect to be false. This one is really hard, but exploiting people by confirming their biases is perhaps even more effective (and dangerous) than exploiting emotional response. And a subpoint of this issue is that while honest mistakes are indeed a part of life, when there is a pattern of honest mistakes - they're probably not honest mistakes. Granted educating people on critical thinking and emotional control is going to be an uphill battle, to put it mildly, but I think it's a wiser strategy than instead engaging in behavior that's predictably going to result in people calling each other shills. In an era of increasing political polarization, this is doubly dangerous. [1] - https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg
- dnomad 8y ago
  It's funny because your comment is itself textbook hysteria. You provide absolutely no evidence at all that any of your claims are true. You attribute behavior to some undefined group of "people", and then insist that this behavior is being driven by another shadowy group ("the media") and this leads you to the very strange conclusion that the "media" is focusing too much on shills.
- matt4077 8y ago
naruvimama 8y ago
Propaganda is no longer the monopoly of media houses. Journalists do not have much credibility either. Countries of Western Europe are missing in the map maybe only because the state holds the purse strings to the media through compulsory tv/radio licensing. Perhaps universities should start courses in trolling instead of journalism. Not that they are any different.
- saturdaysaint 8y ago
  There are major propaganda efforts in motion by dictators and wannabe dictators to discredit genuine journalism, yet American journalists routinely lose their jobs or face extreme demotions if they're caught fabricating. I would state forthrightly that the news pages of the major American and European papers are trustworthy. Do you have evidence of fabrications that have gone unpunished?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - miracle2k 8y ago
    That isn't really the way to think about it. Both bias and laziness affect what is written about, which pieces of information are selected, how well something is researched, and what kind of idea is forming in the reader's mind. State television in countries you would call dictatorships don't necessarily just make up stuff either, nor do they need to.
    - saturdaysaint 8y ago
      If there is "a way" to think about something, it sounds to me like there's some kind of curious orthodoxy at work. Where does this frame of understanding journalism as inescapably flawed because of biases come from? Is there a literature or is this just, like, a talk radio line?
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      It seems like, when pressed for specific examples, that your response is a bit lazy. I see career ending consequences over basic, minor mistakes in the mainstream news industry in the US. I say mainstream, because of specific examples like Hannity/Seth Rich which was based on sourced on baseless conspiracy theories (and never had a retraction or consequences). But https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/3-cnn-journalists-resign-after-retracted-story-on-trump-ally.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/3-cnn-journalist..., Brian Williams, or Jemele Hill all come to mind. I wasn't able to find conservative media examples, but if you are able to provide some that would help.
AllegedAlec 8y ago
Why is this called trolling? It's disinformation at best, and propaganda at worst.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  Its meant to destabilise, akin to terrorism's goal, but seemingly less harmful.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    But trolling is a rhetorical technique, entirely unrelated to "terrorism".
- gcb0 8y ago
  becuase this is disinformation and propaganda itself! notice how the US and UK are completely missing there? (well, there is a note about the US and hints at trump followers but ignores CIA --search grasshopper) "Troll army" is the new Comunist. The same way worker unions and gay holywood actors were purged by calling them Comunists, todays worker unions and small political organizations and true grass-roots movements will be steamrolled by calling them Trolls from some foreign troll army.
SimplyUseless 8y ago
How is this not cyber terrorism? Lynching of muslims in India - by spreading WhatsApp messages on false pretense that they are cow killers - is a direct result of the trolls. Despite being a secular country, India is turning into a social-media driven Hindu/Modi agenda. The trolling is also supplemented by Mainstream media in supporting the agenda by collusion. https://thewire.in/media/times-group-vineet-jain-sting-operation-cobrapost https://thewire.in/media/times-group-vineet-jain-sting-opera...
- ihsw2 8y ago
  How do you differentiate between genuine grassroots opposition and astroturfing campaigns?
  - d0lph 8y ago
    Astroturfing is meant to look like a grassroots movement, a key difference seems to be actively concealing the source of funding or influencing group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
- naruvimama 8y ago
  What can be even more dangerous is the role of "foreign agencies" funding violent protests and systemic training to naxels. What springs to mind is the "Arab springs" of how great nations were turned to hell holes. There is no Hindu/Modi agenda, especially no ruling govt wants instability in the country. The real problem is the pseudo-liberal dishonesty that turns every crime into a hate crime. The gang of arm-chair pseudo - socialists, communists, liberals and seculars, are the ones who are spreading the hate, fear and distrust. They who are uncomfortable with the sudden change in the status quo.
zzzcpan 8y ago
Full paper: http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/DigIntel/IFTF_State_sponsored_trolling_report.pdf http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/DigIntel/IF... Also a bunch of countries are missing. Like Ukraine, nowadays it follows Russia with trolling and uses volunteers and government trolls to spread war propaganda and other government propaganda. Xenophobia, demonization of, hate towards russians, patriotism, hate towards any dissent, etc.
- throwawy3589 8y ago
  CIA has operation mockingbird - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird Hundreds of domestic and foreign reporters used to push their agenda. Fun fact, Anderson Cooper interned two years at the CIA and has no formal education in journalism, seems like a drastic change in career path to go from intelligence officer to TV pundit.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    the quality/integrity of the main article is very questionable as it only hand waves the US out as "the media just repeat this person but that's it". When everyone already knows about CIA and NSA published documents on media manipulation. Not to mention the historical data such as Red Purge et al.
- anticodon 8y ago
  The West was first in using "fake news": there were radio stations broadcasting western propaganda in Russian. When Soviet Union collapsed, the volume of propaganda increased by several orders. And it continue to this day via internet. I have no other explanation to a never ending flurry of articles in social networks and forums that we Russians: 1) evil people dreaming of conquering every country on this planet (this contradicts history and common sense but who cares) 2) we're "genetic garbage" 3) we didn't win in WW2, we just plundered Germany and raped German women 4) it would be better if we surrendered to Germany in WW2 5) we're dumb aggressive people and all our inventions were stolen from the west scientists Etc etc. I see articles with all these points and more every day on Facebook. Who writes and disseminate them?..
throwawy3589 8y ago
This is just manufactured hysteria by the government and MSM to justify further attacks on privacy and regulating content on the internet. The masses will again be fear mongered into giving up their rights lest these shadowy foreign actors brainwash them into committing wrongthink. Just give it time, the goal is to kill anonymity on the internet. Even if you assume the best case scenario and the government has good intentions, it still means our leaders think the people they represent are too stupid to filter info and form their own opinions.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- empath75 8y ago
  Read what happened in Rwanda because of some radio djs spreading hate before telling me that information doesn’t need to be filtered. People are literally dying right now because of social media hate mobs.
- hmd_imputer 8y ago
  it definitely isn't. I am involved in 3 of the countries listed in the article and I can't stress how accurate the information provided is. Please stop this bashing MSM bs...
zyxzevn 8y ago
I am missing "Correct the Record" and other agencies that can be paid to troll and shape opinion. Also there are state-propaganda machines that are designed to push the opinion of people on forums. Want to talk about Israel? Then we have "operation Mockingbird" and other operations still going on. Don't forget that we have the thousands of companies that post stuff on the internet for clicks and commercial gain. Can we distinguish them from the others? And finally we have click-farms that can give us top-posts. Or we can pay social media to get "promoted".
eksemplar 8y ago
What has surprised me the most is how uneducated people have become on complex matters. I work in the public sector, in digitization which gives me some pretty high levels of access because there is literally digitization in everything. I’ve never met a bureaucrat at any higher level of office that wasn’t dedicated, hardworking and intelligent. I’ve never seen a decision or any important matter decided upon without good reason. I have seen a lot of terrible decisions, but they were all made on a solid base that later turned out to be wrong. Politicians are another story, but the vast majority of them are really great at what they do, and if you gave them more than 15 seconds on a tv channel you’d probably get a very different view of most of them than you have now, I know I did, and I wasn’t even particularly negative toward them before it. So there is that, the reality of a complex public sector, which simply isn’t perfect in a democracy, where one of the highest virtues in political decisions comes down to compromise. Yet whenever I go out of my bubble, I’m constantly met with jokes about how monkeys could do better, or drain the swamp type comments. Not just from idiots either, but from virtually anyone. Almost all the time I can dismiss it, by giving an example of why a decision isn’t just black and white. Like open source and the public sector. I talked with a comp.sci. professor about it once, and he had excellent points on why public funding (in it) should mainly go to open source software. Except in reality, a municipality like mine operates 470 different softwares of which 90% haven’t got an open source alternative. Not only that, our entire IT staff is schooled and certified in things that aren’t open source, and even if I could magically replace them over night without it costing millions of dollars, it’s almost impossible to find open source focused replacements. Faced with the complex realities of modern management the professor toned down his argument, but at the time it got me thinking. How did we become a world of people who think we can analyze anything and come up with a solution on how to do it better? And when I say that, analyse, is really the wrong word because we watch a few 15 second clips on politics here and there through out the year, and suddenly we think we can run our institutions better than the people who are actually educated and experienced at running them? We see a few clips of plastic in the ocean, or get snow in April and we think we’re climate scientists? I say we, because I’m just as guilty of this as you are. Compared to people who buy into the social media memes, my only personal advantage, is that I was schooled in verifying my sources before I believe them, but just imagine if you weren’t.
Monikap 8y ago
HELLO,I want to say a very big thanks and appreciation to Dr.Lawrence for bringing back my husband who left me and the kids for almost two months. I am very much grateful to Dr.Lawrence who brought my husband back to me within 3 days.I pray to God almighty to give you the strength and wisdom to help more people having similar problem like mine. drlawrencespelltemple@hotmail. com call or text +19142088349

103 points by dsr12 8y ago

When I was a child using the internet of the late 90's and early 2000's my extended family of grandparents, aunts, and uncles always repeated to me the mantra "Don't believe everything you read on the internet." These are the same people that still forward chain emails and now believe outrageous articles merely because a person they know on a social media site has shared it. As if the person doing the sharing has legitimized the source. Anyway, while not directly influenced by trolls, the kind of content trolls promote still gets to them, and now I feel silly when I try to repeat my childhood mantra back to them. This stuff is really effective.

aldous 8y ago
Yes, indeed the genius of spreading propaganda this way is that it is often disseminated through personal networks, increasing its potency as a wealth of cognitive biases come into play. And how on earth can these campaigns be mitigated? The buffer of ‘mainstream media’ no longer appears to exists as it once did with the concept of ‘fake news’ etc very effectively delegitimising the concept of a reliable resource for information. The smartphone mightier than the sword. Weird isn’t it looking back on those halcyon days of early FB/Twitter? But on reflection, it’s totally logical that social platforms would ultimately end up being leveraged in this way.
- mieseratte 8y ago
  > the concept of ‘fake news’ etc very effectively delegitimising the concept of a reliable resource for information. I'd say the mainstream media and their talking-head opinion-pieces masquerading as news did as much if not more to hurt their image. This would be a much less pernicious problem in a world of genuine, balanced reporting.
  - frockington 8y ago
    I believe the incentive to maximize clicks and/or views caused a short term spike in profits at the expense of long term integrity. I doubt it is permanent but the next few years will be difficult for media establishments when they need to restablish trust
    - chrisallenlane 8y ago
      > I doubt it is permanent but the next few years will be difficult for media establishments when they need to restablish trust Why do you doubt it is permanent? I'm personally very pessimistic about this.
  - mc32 8y ago
    The traditional MSM used to have a particular perspective. CBS, NBC, CNN, Time all had perspectives. That’s to say saw something from a given POV, but they were not “mouthpieces” masquerading as news, back then. Now they all pretty much take sides rather than just have a particular perspective.
    - slededit 8y ago
      For anyone that wants to understand this, listen to some old broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow on the internet archive. https://archive.org/details/SeeItNow1951 https://archive.org/details/SeeItNow1951 He has an opinion and he shares it. But he will let the other side talk. In his famous fight with Senator McCarthy he gave him a whole episode to tell his side, never interrupting.
  - dfxm12 8y ago
    I'd say the mainstream media and their talking-head opinion-pieces masquerading as news did as much if not more to hurt their image. I don't think mainstream media masquerades opinion pieces as news. I think the public at large, vis-a-vis confirmation bias, just wants to believe anything they agree with is true and miscategorizes these stories on their own. The Economist, CNN, MSNBC, NPR at least are all clear about what's news and what's opinion.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

It seems that the media's focus on 'start sponsored trolling' is starting to result in hysteria. You can already see people beginning to insist others are 'trolls' of this sort seemingly based on nothing other than a disagreement of opinions. It would seem that the more responsible way to handle things would be to try to educate people on media rather than aiming towards something that seems to be encouraging people to think that anybody who disagrees with them might be a shill. In particular it seems there are just two issues that could help people detect BS so much more easily: - 1. Avoid emotional responses. If you see something that tugs at the heart strings, or hear of an awful story, there's a good chance it's fake or an outlier event being portrayed as something regular. This [1] is one of the most famous examples. What that's actually an image of is not cosmetic testing on animals, as it was portrayed as in social media, but the spaying/neutering of a large number of cats rescued from abusive conditions. The reason I say there is a "good chance" it's fake is because appeals to emotion are specifically geared at provoking a response people might not otherwise engage in. - 2. Hold new things you expect to be true to the same scrutiny you'd hold new things you expect to be false. This one is really hard, but exploiting people by confirming their biases is perhaps even more effective (and dangerous) than exploiting emotional response. And a subpoint of this issue is that while honest mistakes are indeed a part of life, when there is a pattern of honest mistakes - they're probably not honest mistakes. Granted educating people on critical thinking and emotional control is going to be an uphill battle, to put it mildly, but I think it's a wiser strategy than instead engaging in behavior that's predictably going to result in people calling each other shills. In an era of increasing political polarization, this is doubly dangerous. [1] - https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SIMvJ6Z.jpg

dnomad 8y ago
It's funny because your comment is itself textbook hysteria. You provide absolutely no evidence at all that any of your claims are true. You attribute behavior to some undefined group of "people", and then insist that this behavior is being driven by another shadowy group ("the media") and this leads you to the very strange conclusion that the "media" is focusing too much on shills.
matt4077 8y ago

naruvimama 8y ago

Propaganda is no longer the monopoly of media houses. Journalists do not have much credibility either. Countries of Western Europe are missing in the map maybe only because the state holds the purse strings to the media through compulsory tv/radio licensing. Perhaps universities should start courses in trolling instead of journalism. Not that they are any different.

saturdaysaint 8y ago
There are major propaganda efforts in motion by dictators and wannabe dictators to discredit genuine journalism, yet American journalists routinely lose their jobs or face extreme demotions if they're caught fabricating. I would state forthrightly that the news pages of the major American and European papers are trustworthy. Do you have evidence of fabrications that have gone unpunished?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- miracle2k 8y ago
  That isn't really the way to think about it. Both bias and laziness affect what is written about, which pieces of information are selected, how well something is researched, and what kind of idea is forming in the reader's mind. State television in countries you would call dictatorships don't necessarily just make up stuff either, nor do they need to.
  - saturdaysaint 8y ago
    If there is "a way" to think about something, it sounds to me like there's some kind of curious orthodoxy at work. Where does this frame of understanding journalism as inescapably flawed because of biases come from? Is there a literature or is this just, like, a talk radio line?
  - throwaway5752 8y ago
    It seems like, when pressed for specific examples, that your response is a bit lazy. I see career ending consequences over basic, minor mistakes in the mainstream news industry in the US. I say mainstream, because of specific examples like Hannity/Seth Rich which was based on sourced on baseless conspiracy theories (and never had a retraction or consequences). But https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/3-cnn-journalists-resign-after-retracted-story-on-trump-ally.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/business/3-cnn-journalist..., Brian Williams, or Jemele Hill all come to mind. I wasn't able to find conservative media examples, but if you are able to provide some that would help.

AllegedAlec 8y ago

Why is this called trolling? It's disinformation at best, and propaganda at worst.

Fnoord 8y ago
Its meant to destabilise, akin to terrorism's goal, but seemingly less harmful.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  But trolling is a rhetorical technique, entirely unrelated to "terrorism".
gcb0 8y ago
becuase this is disinformation and propaganda itself! notice how the US and UK are completely missing there? (well, there is a note about the US and hints at trump followers but ignores CIA --search grasshopper) "Troll army" is the new Comunist. The same way worker unions and gay holywood actors were purged by calling them Comunists, todays worker unions and small political organizations and true grass-roots movements will be steamrolled by calling them Trolls from some foreign troll army.

SimplyUseless 8y ago

How is this not cyber terrorism? Lynching of muslims in India - by spreading WhatsApp messages on false pretense that they are cow killers - is a direct result of the trolls. Despite being a secular country, India is turning into a social-media driven Hindu/Modi agenda. The trolling is also supplemented by Mainstream media in supporting the agenda by collusion. https://thewire.in/media/times-group-vineet-jain-sting-operation-cobrapost https://thewire.in/media/times-group-vineet-jain-sting-opera...

ihsw2 8y ago
How do you differentiate between genuine grassroots opposition and astroturfing campaigns?
- d0lph 8y ago
  Astroturfing is meant to look like a grassroots movement, a key difference seems to be actively concealing the source of funding or influencing group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
naruvimama 8y ago
What can be even more dangerous is the role of "foreign agencies" funding violent protests and systemic training to naxels. What springs to mind is the "Arab springs" of how great nations were turned to hell holes. There is no Hindu/Modi agenda, especially no ruling govt wants instability in the country. The real problem is the pseudo-liberal dishonesty that turns every crime into a hate crime. The gang of arm-chair pseudo - socialists, communists, liberals and seculars, are the ones who are spreading the hate, fear and distrust. They who are uncomfortable with the sudden change in the status quo.

zzzcpan 8y ago

Full paper: http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/DigIntel/IFTF_State_sponsored_trolling_report.pdf http://www.iftf.org/fileadmin/user_upload/images/DigIntel/IF... Also a bunch of countries are missing. Like Ukraine, nowadays it follows Russia with trolling and uses volunteers and government trolls to spread war propaganda and other government propaganda. Xenophobia, demonization of, hate towards russians, patriotism, hate towards any dissent, etc.

throwawy3589 8y ago
CIA has operation mockingbird - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird Hundreds of domestic and foreign reporters used to push their agenda. Fun fact, Anderson Cooper interned two years at the CIA and has no formal education in journalism, seems like a drastic change in career path to go from intelligence officer to TV pundit.
- gcb0 8y ago
  the quality/integrity of the main article is very questionable as it only hand waves the US out as "the media just repeat this person but that's it". When everyone already knows about CIA and NSA published documents on media manipulation. Not to mention the historical data such as Red Purge et al.
anticodon 8y ago
The West was first in using "fake news": there were radio stations broadcasting western propaganda in Russian. When Soviet Union collapsed, the volume of propaganda increased by several orders. And it continue to this day via internet. I have no other explanation to a never ending flurry of articles in social networks and forums that we Russians: 1) evil people dreaming of conquering every country on this planet (this contradicts history and common sense but who cares) 2) we're "genetic garbage" 3) we didn't win in WW2, we just plundered Germany and raped German women 4) it would be better if we surrendered to Germany in WW2 5) we're dumb aggressive people and all our inventions were stolen from the west scientists Etc etc. I see articles with all these points and more every day on Facebook. Who writes and disseminate them?..

throwawy3589 8y ago

This is just manufactured hysteria by the government and MSM to justify further attacks on privacy and regulating content on the internet. The masses will again be fear mongered into giving up their rights lest these shadowy foreign actors brainwash them into committing wrongthink. Just give it time, the goal is to kill anonymity on the internet. Even if you assume the best case scenario and the government has good intentions, it still means our leaders think the people they represent are too stupid to filter info and form their own opinions.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
empath75 8y ago
Read what happened in Rwanda because of some radio djs spreading hate before telling me that information doesn’t need to be filtered. People are literally dying right now because of social media hate mobs.
hmd_imputer 8y ago
it definitely isn't. I am involved in 3 of the countries listed in the article and I can't stress how accurate the information provided is. Please stop this bashing MSM bs...

zyxzevn 8y ago

I am missing "Correct the Record" and other agencies that can be paid to troll and shape opinion. Also there are state-propaganda machines that are designed to push the opinion of people on forums. Want to talk about Israel? Then we have "operation Mockingbird" and other operations still going on. Don't forget that we have the thousands of companies that post stuff on the internet for clicks and commercial gain. Can we distinguish them from the others? And finally we have click-farms that can give us top-posts. Or we can pay social media to get "promoted".

eksemplar 8y ago

What has surprised me the most is how uneducated people have become on complex matters. I work in the public sector, in digitization which gives me some pretty high levels of access because there is literally digitization in everything. I’ve never met a bureaucrat at any higher level of office that wasn’t dedicated, hardworking and intelligent. I’ve never seen a decision or any important matter decided upon without good reason. I have seen a lot of terrible decisions, but they were all made on a solid base that later turned out to be wrong. Politicians are another story, but the vast majority of them are really great at what they do, and if you gave them more than 15 seconds on a tv channel you’d probably get a very different view of most of them than you have now, I know I did, and I wasn’t even particularly negative toward them before it. So there is that, the reality of a complex public sector, which simply isn’t perfect in a democracy, where one of the highest virtues in political decisions comes down to compromise. Yet whenever I go out of my bubble, I’m constantly met with jokes about how monkeys could do better, or drain the swamp type comments. Not just from idiots either, but from virtually anyone. Almost all the time I can dismiss it, by giving an example of why a decision isn’t just black and white. Like open source and the public sector. I talked with a comp.sci. professor about it once, and he had excellent points on why public funding (in it) should mainly go to open source software. Except in reality, a municipality like mine operates 470 different softwares of which 90% haven’t got an open source alternative. Not only that, our entire IT staff is schooled and certified in things that aren’t open source, and even if I could magically replace them over night without it costing millions of dollars, it’s almost impossible to find open source focused replacements. Faced with the complex realities of modern management the professor toned down his argument, but at the time it got me thinking. How did we become a world of people who think we can analyze anything and come up with a solution on how to do it better? And when I say that, analyse, is really the wrong word because we watch a few 15 second clips on politics here and there through out the year, and suddenly we think we can run our institutions better than the people who are actually educated and experienced at running them? We see a few clips of plastic in the ocean, or get snow in April and we think we’re climate scientists? I say we, because I’m just as guilty of this as you are. Compared to people who buy into the social media memes, my only personal advantage, is that I was schooled in verifying my sources before I believe them, but just imagine if you weren’t.

Monikap 8y ago

HELLO,I want to say a very big thanks and appreciation to Dr.Lawrence for bringing back my husband who left me and the kids for almost two months. I am very much grateful to Dr.Lawrence who brought my husband back to me within 3 days.I pray to God almighty to give you the strength and wisdom to help more people having similar problem like mine. drlawrencespelltemple@hotmail. com call or text +19142088349